The Mountain
by Official Rambler
Summary: Children are disappearing from a village, a village situated near a mountain renowned for the monsters that inhabit it. The medicine seller has come to town in search of a Mononoke. He may have found none, or he may have found a mountain's worth.
1. Chapter 1

The god of the mountain did not begin as a god, but an egg.

A crow's egg.

* * *

Legends speak of shapeshifters, of animals that can change shape from bestial to human form at will, who can bend the will of reality to change their appearance. They say that certain conditions must be met for an animal to be able to do this; they must reach a certain age, or weight, or they must have their tails split. This is not true.

They can all change their faces, from the tadpole in the pond to the tiger in the forest. But they are all still just animals, and that is how they behave.

It is lucky for humanity that animals tend to choose to remain animals.

But sometimes, not so much.

* * *

"Don't touch it."

The medicine seller paused, hand just inches away from the mossy stone marker. Very slowly, he turned towards the voice.

A girl stood in the clearing behind him, dressed in a short red kimono. Her hair was wavy and long, and worn partly tied back in a ribbon. She had cat ears, and a cat tail, wrapped in a bandage towards the end. Her eyes were yellow, and she wore sandals but no socks. Her knees were dirty, and she did not look pleased with him.

"Why not?" he asked quietly.

"It is bad luck," she said fiercely. "You're bad luck."

"Is that so?" he murmured, turning to face her fully. He was not smiling, but the paint on the corners of his lips almost made it seem so.

"We've all heard the stories. You aren't our friend," she said stiffly, tail lashing.

"Spirits of your kind are of no interest to me," he said blandly. Neither of them had blinked for several minutes, and there was no sign that either of them would. "It is the vengeful, the corrupted, the _human_ spirits, that I hunt."

"The children of men catch us and make us ugly," she said. "You kill guilty humans, but innocent demons."

He did smile, at that.

"Some… thing… on this mountain," he began. "Has been stealing children from the village."

She stiffened even more, the fur on her tail standing on end.

"I had heard," she said, looking away at last. "We don't know who it is."

"The villagers blame the mountain god," he continued.

She looked up at him again, eyes fierce, expression stricken.

"The god of the mountain would do no such thing," she said. "The villagers tell each other that so that they can sleep at night, even while they know that it truly is one of their own gone mad."

"Do you know the mountain god, then?" he asked.

"No one knows the mountain god anymore," she said quietly. "He is dead. He lies under that stone."

The medicine seller turned around again, to look at the stone she indicated, the one he had almost touched.

"Mountain gods… do not die… every day," he said softly.

"Nor do their sons," she replied. "But his did."

"Ah," said the medicine seller, nodding. "I see."

"I would search under the floorboards of the houses in the village for the missing children, before I would blame the god of the mountain," she said. He nodded again.

"Indeed." He paused, tilting his head, looking at her a little askance. "Of course, were I to find corpses beneath the floorboards of a house, a bakeneko would be the first I would blame."

She breathed in sharply, eyes narrowing at him, and for a moment, he saw a small black cat, puffed up and hissing.

"No," he continued, putting his hand on his chin, gaze lighting on the bandage on her tail. "I suppose I would… have to blame… a nekomata, this time."

"A farmer tried to kill me when I was small," she said sharply. "He thought I was a bakeneko, because I liked the taste of the lantern oil. He missed, and split the tip of my tail."

"And you carry no grudge?" he drawled.

"Why would I?" she snorted, tossing her head. "I ran away. I found the mountain, and because of that I can stand before you, instead of your ankles."

"The mountain…" he murmured. "Or the mountain god?"

She looked away, and he did not think she needed to answer.

"I still have goods I can sell in the village," he said, beginning the walk back to the main path. "I will be there a few days yet."

"Or until the Mononoke shows its face," she finished.

"That is so," he said.

"I would check beneath the floorboards of the missing childrens' houses, first," she called after him.

He was already on the main path, but he stopped, and turned towards her.

"I sell lantern oil," he said. "When I am in the village, you might come to buy some. For your lamps."

There was the ghost of a smile in his voice, to match the ghost of the smile that was painted on his face.

She did not smile back.

"I might," she did concede.

* * *

The mountain god had a son.

The mountain god's son fell in love with a beautiful human girl. He came to her by the banks of the stream from the mountain, and told her he would take her away, to be a princess.

But she was already promised to marry another man, and her parents did not believe her tales of a tengu boy promising her luxury and adoration.

On the day of her wedding, the mountain god's son went down into the village, to sweep her away, but he arrived too late.

Although he could not have her, he was not an ungracious loser. As a wedding gift, he gave her a fan, with the instructions to whisper her name into it, if she were to ever need him.

The mountain god himself did not forbid it, because he did not know it had been done.

* * *

_Disclaimer: Not making any money, etc._

_First time writing for Mononoke, but I think I might actually end up finishing this one. It isn't based on any legend specifically, though, so I'm definitely making it all up as I go along. Aheh. Wish me luck._

_Reviews welcomed and appreciated. _


	2. Chapter 2

There can be more than one mountain god.

Sometimes there are as many as whispers of wind in the trees, as will o th' wisps on the lakes, or bright children from the forest creatures. Sometimes a mountain is so full of gods that they leak out into the human world. Gods are not uncommon, after all.

But on this mountain, there was only one, until he had a son, who, naturally, was also a god. They were the only two.

When the mountain god's son fell in love, he wanted nothing more in the world than to make it three.

* * *

The medicine seller unslung his apothecary's chest with practiced ease, and set it down in the street, puffing up a small cloud of dust. Passers-by stopped to see what he was selling, and he did a reasonable amount of business, for a small town.

A longhaired black cat with a bandage on her tail lay in the shadows between two houses across the street, watching him. The medicine seller could tell she was there, but every time he looked up, she hid.

Business was good, but clues were scarce. Nobody in the village wanted to trust a newcomer with their troubles, especially such a suspicious-looking character as the medicine seller.

"Kusuriuri-san! Kusuriuri-san!" A child's voice. He turned to look.

A small boy was running towards him, lugging a great, fat ginger cat in his arms. Behind him trailed an even smaller girl, ostensibly a sister.

"Ah," said the medicine seller. "Is this… a patient?"

"Kitty's sick!" exclaimed the little girl, eyes huge with worry. Her brother glared at her and set the cat down in front of the medicine chest.

"He's gotten really lethargic lately, doesn't move around a lot, and he eats so much. We've caught him vomiting a few times too. I don't think he's dying, because cats hide when they're dying, but my little sister's worried," he explained. "Is there any medicine we can buy…?"

The medicine seller reached down to pet the ginger cat, who had flopped into the dust unconcernedly, and was doing his best to sleep. He drew his hand in one long stroke from the top of the cat's head to the tip of his tail, and then looked up at the children. His lip twitched, and from across the street, he thought he might have heard the black cat snicker.

"I can tell you what is the matter with your cat, if you can… tell me a few things," he offered, looking back at the boy. The boy swallowed, made nervous by the man's gaze.

"Uh… sure, if… yeah," he said. "What'dyou want to know?"

"Are there any individuals… in this area, who would not make it to the main street in one day? I am wondering if I should… make any house calls," he asked.

The boy darted a glance at his sister, who looked utterly bewildered, and sighed. "This is market day. Most everybody's here," he said. "But… well, there is that house in the woods."

"House in the woods?" echoed the medicine seller.

"Yeah. It's by the river, where it runs deepest. There's an old lady there who doesn't come into town much," he said. "Someone delivers her groceries. She's kind of creepy."

"Creepy," echoed the medicine seller, satisfied.

"So what's wrong with our cat?" insisted the boy.

"Your kitty is not a boy. She's pregnant," said the medicine seller calmly, reaching to scratch the cat under the chin. "Leave her be, and she'll bring you kittens in a week or so."

"Oh!" exclaimed the little girl. "Really? Kittens? Kitty, I never knew!" She swept the ginger cat into her arms happily, struggling to hold the cat up.

"But… it's a ginger cat. Ginger cats are always male," said the boy, confused.

"That is not a truth," said the medicine seller. "Ginger cats are male more often, but they can be female."

"Next you'll tell me tricolors can be male," said the boy, shaking his head, but he took the cat away from his sister anyway, and hoisted her over his shoulder. "Thank you. I was sure the cat would be okay. This was just for my sister."

They left the same way they'd came. The medicine seller watched them. When he looked down again, the black cat with the bandaged tail was sitting next to him, licking her front paw.

"I could have told you all that," she said, looking at him out of the corner of her eye. "About the old lady in the woods. And I'm not utterly boring, like them."

"You think highly of yourself," replied the medicine seller, amused.

"I'm a cat," she sniffed. "Who else am I going to think highly of?"

"So is the house by the river where the mononoke resides?" he said, mostly to himself. The cat answered anyway.

"She's a very creepy old lady," she assured him. "I don't doubt if there is a mononoke at work here, it would be she."

"I will go there tonight, then," he said. The cat flopped dramatically.

"Why not now! You're repulsively boring," she groaned.

"You could leave," he suggested.

"You could have intentions other than murdering mountain spirits," she spat back.

There was silence between them for a moment. Then the medicine seller turned to his cabinet, and produced a small jar of lantern oil and a saucer. He filled the saucer and set it on the ground next to him, but when he turned back to the cat, she was already gone.

He looked across the street, but she wasn't there anymore either, so he poured the oil back into the jar and recorked it for the next customer.

* * *

"I wish he'd never come here," said the cat dejectedly. She was back on the mountain, wearing her girl-form. "He's going to ruin everything."

"He won't ruin anything," grunted the karasu-tengu, without looking up from the scroll he perused. "That was done long before he came here. The most he could possibly do is tie up a loose end or two. There's been bad magic around this area ever since the mountain god… well, anyway. Cheer up, he might even get himself killed."

"I don't want _that_," she said hurriedly. The tengu arched an eyebrow at her.

"Men kill mononoke, and mononoke kill men. He kills both at the same time, and you say you wouldn't want him dead? Interesting," he said.

"Shut up," said the cat. She lounged for a minute more, tail lashing disgrunteldly. She looked up at the sky, already turning purple around the edges, and orange and pink around the clouds in the middle. "I'm going back to the village," she announced, and stood up.

"Curiosity killed the cat," the tengu called after her. She made a rude gesture at him, even as she broke into a run.

* * *

After the woman the mountain god's son had fallen in love with was married to another man, all seemed to return to normal. The mountain god's son was only a little more morose than usual, and only called down the thunder with a little more malice than necessary.

A month after the woman was married, she was found to be pregnant. Nobody was concerned, because it was the natural progression of things, after all.

But her pregnancy was very troublesome, the child inside of her weighed heavy, and caused her night terrors when she lay on her back. She could have called the mountain god's son by speaking his name into the fan he had given her, and he would have given her charms and herbs to ease the pain and terrors. But she did not want to trouble him on account of another man's child.

So it was with great relief that she gave birth, finally.

No one rejoiced over the baby, however.

There wasn't a baby at all.

The woman gave birth to an egg.

* * *

_Disclaimer: Not making any money, don't intend to, etc._

_Well, I have a plot now. It's not based on any legend, this is just purely out of my head. I think it's coming along nicely in spite of that. _

_Thank you to everyone who reviewed! It's really encouraging. I would appreciate hearing from you all again, as well as anybody else who reads the story. _


	3. Chapter 3

The mountain god was kept ignorant of his son's doings.

It was not that he would have disapproved, necessarily. It was simply that his son did not wish to find out whether or not he would.

The anger of a mountain god is formidable. When the earth shakes, even the sky is terrified.

But what those who helped the mountain god's son to keep his dalliances hidden did not know was that the sorrow of a mountain god is ten times as horrible as his anger.

* * *

The cat and the boy in the street had not been lying. The rotting house in the woods by the deep part of the river was… creepy.

All around, the trees crept close, except on the side by the river. Nothing at all grew near the river, not for yards, not even when the rocks of the bank gave way to fertile soil. There were no bird sounds, no frog sounds, no cricket sounds. Only the rushing of the river above and below, and the lower, more sinister sound the eddies of the deep part made.

The porch to the side of the house closest to the river was almost on top of the water. The medicine peddler eyed the dark water. It didn't appear murky, but the bottom was invisible.

The house itself was decrepit. Wood had rotted through in many places, leaving gaps where the wind could moan through the boards, gaps that looked like ragged plague sores. Still, the front door was apparently still in use. The medicine seller could see the differently-colored wood where it had been repaired recently.

"Told you it was creepy," said the cat, appearing from behind a tree, wearing her girl-form and a smirk.

The medicine peddler did not startle, but he did stop, and blink at her very slowly.

"So you did," he said mildly.

"Wondering why I'm here?" she asked, falling into step next to him as he approached the porch.

"No," replied the medicine seller. The cat's ears flattened momentarily, but perked up again in an instant.

"I want to see how this turns out," she said, yellow eyes starting to shine green as the sun sank further. "And it is also of great interest to me that you do not kill a perfectly irrelevant bystander obake."

The corners of his mouth did twitch at that, and he darted a glance her way that seemed to hold a smirk. The paint on his face made it hard to tell a meaningful look from a blank stare, though.

They were on the bottom step, now. The wood creaked, but held, under the medicine peddler's feet. It did not so much as creak beneath the cat.

Middle step, top step, porch.

Two steps to reach the door. The boards moaned like ghosts at their approach.

A ragged sound from within like labored breathing.

The cat went from standing beside the medicine peddler, to hovering behind him. He did not doubt that to eyes other than his she would look like a cat rather than a girl at the moment.

"Aren't you going to draw your sword?" she whispered.

"I cannot," he said mildly. "I require the creature's Truth, Form, and Regret."

"Ah!" exclaimed the cat. "You have your truth right here, then."

"Oh?" he asked, half-turning to look at her, one eyebrow quirked slightly more than the other.

"My name is Makoto," she said. He continued to stare at her, eyes hard, for a moment longer. "Funny coincidence," she finished, fidgeting as though she would have liked to start washing her paws.

"An odd thing, indeed," he said, turning back to face the door. "But there is no coincidence."

The cat opened her mouth to say something more, but froze at a noise from inside the house.

A slither, like a body being dragged, and a thunk. More slither. A solid thump, closer to the door. Again. Again.

"Who is there?" the croak from within is so rotted as to be genderless, but the pitch marks it as female. "Who is there?"

"I am but a simple medicine peddler," said the medicine peddler. The cat snorted quietly. "I heard there was an illness in the house."

"Yes," was the faint reply. "Yes."

A scraping noise, and the door slid open with painful slowness.

The crone within couldn't be taller than three and a half feet, bent and wrinkled and folded over like a tree in the desert. Her hair was loose, and fell in ragged iron gray hanks to her knees. A hand so gnarled that it could have been a mushroom grasped the door.

Her pupils were milky, but her eyes still focused, locking on the medicine peddler.

"If you will allow me to show you my wares," he began, but she held up a hand.

"You must come to see my son," she said, and stepped out onto the porch, closing the door behind her.

* * *

The husband of the woman who had given birth to an egg remembered the fan she had been given at their wedding, as a present from the son of the mountain god. He remembered, and grew angry. The god of the mountain was a tengu, a crow-like thing, and so was his son.

While his wife lay in bed, sick and moaning, he took the egg she had birthed to the kitchens, and ordered his cook to turn it into an omelet.

The cook tried, but the shell of the egg was far too hard to crack.

The husband was even further angered by this, and tried to break the egg himself with his sword. The sword broke instead.

And so, in his anger, the husband dragged his wife to the banks of the river by their house, and said that he would throw her in the water bound and gagged if she did not explain herself, and the egg.

She could not explain.

So her husband took the fan of the mountain god's son and spoke his wife's name into it.

* * *

_Disclaimer: etc_

_The plot, it thickens. _

_I wrote this while wearing my kusuriuri-san kimono… there was still Halloween candy in the sleeves, aheh. Unsure whether or not the kimono improved the writing quality or not._

_Thank you to all my reviewers! It's very inspiring to get such positive feedback, but critique is also welcome. I'd love to hear what you think!_


	4. Chapter 4

Rivers… are hungry creatures.

They do not care who they eat, but they consume, and consume, and tear and swallow and beat and grasp. They are the sea, with all the fury but none of the space, funneled close in anger.

Well. Perhaps not all rivers.

But the river the mountain god's son was summoned to the banks of by the husband of the woman he'd loved… it was a hungry river.

* * *

The old woman moved slowly, one step at a time, creaking and thumping as she went. Her pace was set. Not even fires from heaven would make her speed up or slow down by even one second.

She took the stairs one step at a time, thumping, the ragged end of her kimono trailing behind her on the step she had just vacated. Finally, she reached the bottom, and halted, turning her head very slowly to stare up at the medicine seller.

"You must come to see my son," she said, and began hobbling across the rocks. Down the bank. Towards the river.

The medicine peddler stared after her for a moment, then followed. Makoto crouched behind him, her tail bushed, ears flat back.

"What is she…" the cat-girl hissed, grabbing for the medicine peddler's arm, but only getting a handful of kimono sleeve. "She's going to the river."

"Yes," said the medicine peddler. "So it would appear."

"That river's deep, and the current's strong. It traps you in the rocks until you drown," whined Makoto. "It's where—"

"It is where my son is," said the crone, not breaking stride. Makoto froze, and this time she did catch the medicine seller by the arm, gripping it.

"She can hear me," she said, pupils dilated so far her whole iris almost appeared black. "She knows."

"She has business with a medicine peddler, not a cat," said the medicine peddler serenely, taking a step forward to remove her from his arm rather than actually touching her. His mouth stretched. It might have been a smile. "You can leave at any time."

Makoto grimaced, and worried her hands, looking very much as though she wanted to start washing her paws. She looked from the old woman, to the medicine seller, and from there to the glimpse of the river over the rocks. She could hear it clearly, and it made her shake so badly her geta clattered on the pebbles.

"No, I can't," she finally said, stumbling after the medicine seller. She swallowed and looked up at him. "I can't leave. I'll see this."

* * *

The supernatural.

That which exists outside of that which exists.

* * *

The water of the river was dark, the bottom invisible. It flowed like glass in the center, but the debris that became caught up and swept away passed by impossibly fast. The old woman came right up to the edge of the rocks on the shore, letting the river swipe at her toes. The medicine seller stayed back a few paces, impassive, inscrutable.

"Is this it's form," he wondered aloud, but quietly. The sword that had slipped out of his sleeve and into his hand remained quiet; the wooden teeth did not so much as rattle.

"Come closer," rasped the old woman. "You must see my son."

"I don't want to," whispered Makoto. Certainty that something horrible lay just out of sight in the river was seamed into every bone in her body.

"Where is he?" asked the medicine peddler.

"He is here," repeated the woman, impatiently, this time. She still stood with her sandals in the water, on the very cusp.

The medicine seller took a step, two steps, and one half more, Makoto still shivering behind him. His gaze glided down, slowly, to the water by the rocks where the old woman stood. He went rigid, breath catching. Makoto froze completely.

In the water, just below the surface, the bloated face of a drowned child loomed up at them. There was a rope around his neck, tethering the corpse to the bottom. Below the first child were shadows and pale white shapes of even more below.

"No matter what I do, I cannot make him better," said the old woman. "So, Kusuriuri-san, can your medicines make him well?"

"Is this the form?" the medicine peddler hissed, stepping back, almost into Makoto, causing her to stumble. Not even a whisper from the sword.

"If you cannot heal my son," said the old woman, turning completely to face them, "then I will make you my son, instead."

A roar like a waterfall, and the woman seemed to melt into the stones, as behind her, a column of water shot up. It was a dragon, a typhoon, a waterspout, a great and pounding sorrow. The faceless column bent in midair, twisting, and descended upon the medicine seller.

"Maelstrom!" cried the medicine seller, and the teeth on his sword clicked once.

* * *

The husband of the woman the mountain god's son loved waited by the riverbanks for the mountain god's son. He arrived swiftly, with wind under his feet and a clap of thunder riding behind him.

The husband confronted him with the egg, and of course the mountain god's son knew what had happened. He apologized, said that it was his child, his egg, and offered to take it, away from the humans to where it belonged, upon the mountain. The woman he loved cried with joy at this idea, and begged her husband to let it be so.

But the husband was no longer a man to be reasoned with.

He screamed that the mountain god's son was a liar, and that the egg was not his child at all, but the legitimate offspring of he and his wife. Therefore, since it was his child, he could do as he pleased with it.

The husband caught up the egg and threw it into the river as hard as he could. It sank like a stone.

The mountain god's son gave no thought. He dove in after it.

Mountain gods can swim, but they can also drown.

The river was too hungry to let either of them go.

* * *

War was spoken of that night. A child belonging to the mountain had been killed that day.

Two children, in fact. To ask the mountain god, anyway.

But war was not what the mountain god desired. His heart was weighed down, more than he had ever felt before. Gods do not often know sorrow, so when they do, it is powerful.

The human woman and her husband did not end happily. He went mad, and lit fire to himself one night three years after throwing the egg in the river. The woman… she too, went mad, but much more quietly, and poisonously. She wanted to drown herself, but was too afraid. She kept living.

The mountain god did not care. He ignored them. His sorrow consumed him. The loss of not only a child, but a grandchild; the only he would ever know. It ate him alive.

He did not see the grief of those around him, those who loved him. He did not see the tears shed for him, in mourning for his spirit.

He did not see, not even as he crumbled to dust on the mountain, reduced to ashes by his grief. Otherwise…

* * *

Most animals do not have tear ducts. Cats do not have tear ducts.

Therefore it is safe to assume that if something shaped like a cat sheds tears, it is no longer a cat.

* * *

Makoto screamed, throwing herself backwards, away from the frothing coil of water that enveloped the medicine seller. The old woman was consumed as well, but her oily, terrible chuckle roared along with the river.

"YOU HAVE SHOWN ME!" shouted the medicine seller, feet planted, straining in every inch of him against the water that dragged at him, against all physical laws. He was slipping. It was not much longer. "YOU HAVE SHOWN ME! This is your Regret!" he shouted.

The sword in his hand was held before him, steady as a rock beneath the torrent. His gaze was locked on it even through the water, so he had a clear view as the teeth… did not click.

Abject horror washed across the medicine seller's face as his geta finally slipped, and he was sucked into the water.

Makoto watched, purely terrified. She could not do anything.

The water churned, sweeping the medicine seller into its heart, rattling and digesting. Then, at once, the water was smooth again, and running clear. The medicine seller was gone. Where the woman had stood, was a pile of sticks and mud, in roughly the same shape.

"NO!" shrieked Makoto. "No, this isn't right! He was supposed to fix everything!"

She scrambled to her feet, sliding on the rocks and fumbling, towards the riverbank. There were no more corpses just visible beneath the water anymore, just deep, cold water.

"He needed more," she whispered, wiping at her eyes. The pile of mud that had been the old woman shuddered, beside her. Makoto turned, fixing on it with fire like a lamp in her eyes.

"You're the regret! You never died!" she snarled, circling around behind the pile. With one coiled spring, she toppled the whole thing into the river.

It bubbled like a cauldron, and the mud was siphoned into the current.

A minute passed, with nothing.

Makoto screamed again, this time with pure rage. Nothing happened.

* * *

_Omigod that was hard. –pants- _

_Good news, I definitely know how this is going to end. One or two chapters more to go, though, I think. Hopefully, everything will make sense! And if not, well, just like the anime then. Aheh._

_Thank you so much for all the wonderful reviews! You really have no idea how much it means to me. As usual, I'll ask for concrit, but by this point I don't really expect it... still, feel free to leave any kind of comment!_


	5. Chapter 5

The medicine peddler opened his eyes. It did not help.

He felt as though he had no bones. There was cold, and pressure, at all sides and pressing in around him, and yet accompanied by a strangely weightless sensation. His clothes floated gently, not quite touching his body, and his sleeves followed his hand lazily as he raised it in front of his face.

"Ah," he said, staring past that white hand, into the murk that surrounded him behind it. "I am drowning."

* * *

Makoto sat curled up on a rock by the river, head resting on her knees. Quiet tears dripped onto her legs.

Still, the river gasped and pushed and raced on by, ignoring her.

"Regret," she murmured. "He needed a regret. A regret and a truth."

The name of the form had been Maelstrom, although she supposed River God would have sufficed as well. River demon. River God. The same coin, from different perspectives.

The regret should have been the sorrow of the old woman for the loss of her child. The regret should have been the sorrow of the mountain god's son for the loss of his child. The regret should have been the child itself, and all the years it did not have.

Makoto knew the story. She had been there. She had been very young, but she remembered. She remembered the feeling, when the news of the deaths was received, that before that day, there had been different paths for the future of the mountain, many bright and wonderful. Afterwards, the other paths were gone, and there was only one, shrouded in grief.

When had the mononoke appeared here? Makoto had a poor grasp of time. It could have been years, or merely weeks. Was the mononoke the old woman? The mountain god's son? The unhatched child? Or was it some other entity, that had lain in the dark of the river, and merely fed on the old woman's poison?

The old woman had clearly poisoned something, but what? Or had it poisoned her? No, no. The old woman had rotted inside, that was the meaning of the pile of mud. But then where had she gone? Was she in the river now, with the medicine peddler?

Was she the river?

Makoto's head snapped up, and she fixed the river with a furious stare. The very sight of it made the hair on the back of her neck and her tail stand on end. It was running wrong. Makoto knew the river; it had its roots higher on the mountain. It did not run wrong above this cursed house.

Makoto stood up, hands clenching and unclenching nervously. She did not know if the medicine seller was dead, if he even could die. But she knew now that the old woman, the witch, was the river.

Makoto was a nekomata. Nekomata are puppetmasters; they control the dead.

The old woman had killed dozens of children. They lay now at the bottom of the river, tied to rocks, trapped.

Breathing shallowly, Makoto stepped right up to the edge of the river, in the same place the old woman had stood. It felt like standing on the edge of a cliff.

Makoto raised her hands, fingers set like claws. A strange huff, like the very atmosphere twitching, passed over the water.

At the bottom of the river, a child's hand reached up to its neck and began untying the rope.

* * *

"Yes, you are drowning."

The medicine seller turned, slowly, not entirely surprised by the response. The speaker was what might have once been a young man, now rotted and thin, with ragged hair and water-rotted clothes. No, it was not a man. He was a tengu, a dai-tengu, red skinned and pointy-nosed, with dark rotten wings for a cloak. Perhaps once he might have been handsome, but now with ghost-lights in his eyes he was merely pathetic.

"And yet I am not drowning," said the medicine peddler curiously, stepping forwards. The dai-tengu held up a hand.

"You are closer than you think," he said.

"Is this the regret?" asked the medicine seller. The dai-tengu shook his head.

"I cannot tell you the regret of she who keeps you here, only my own regret," he said. He paused, and cast a glance over his shoulder, empty pale eyes flickering sadly. "I was never able to hold my son in my arms."

The medicine peddler looked where the dai-tengu's gaze rested, and saw an egg on the riverbed. He looked sharply to the dai-tengu, but there was no longer even his ghost there, merely a rotted skeleton, some feet from the egg, arms outstretched.

The current, which had been all but still before, suddenly shifted. The medicine seller looked around, and the scene changed.

A woman in ornate dress sat in a chair in the center of a tasteful, open room. She was not merely attractive, but beautiful in an unconscious, naturally breathtaking way. Her kimono was too dark to truly complement her, though, all browns and dark greens, with tiny threads of gold.

The medicine seller looked around. Outside, there was a courtyard, where well-kept trees and flowers bloomed. A bird sang. It was sunny.

"There," said the woman. "You've drowned. Now you're mine."

* * *

The last one to touch the mountain god before he was subsumed into the earth as dust was a cat.

A kitten, to be precise. She had been saved by the mountain god. Now she loved him. It had started as the simple, unashamed affection a cat has for the one who feeds it, but the longer the kitten stayed with youkai, the more she became like them, with their caprice, their power… their intensity, their passions.

She loved the mountain god, and did not want him to die. It really was that simple.

Nekomata are, after all, known for having a measure of control over death, however small it may be.

* * *

There were so many children.

Makoto was up to her knees in the water now, completely unawares. She thought she might be close to freeing the last one, but there could be more. Ah, yes, there were, but they were under the others, and their ropes had rotted.

Now to march on the woman who was the river demon. River god. Whichever.

"Come with us," a whisper came up from the bottom of the river. The whisper of a child.

"Go and bring her to me," ordered Makoto.

"Come with us," repeated the child. Makoto could see him now, could see the rot and bloat of his cheeks and how it did not move as it should when he spoke. "We cannot reach her without you."

Makoto gasped and tried to pull back, but the arms of children grasped tight to her own, and pulled. Down she went, into the abyss of the river. The current should have swept her away the minute she reached it, but the strength of the dead ignores the natural.

"But I hate water!" she shrieked, and then she was gone, pulled under completely.

* * *

The children stood around her in an expansive courtyard, that of a castle or a nobleman's house. The rot that had clung to them was gone, and they shone whole and healthy in the light.

It set Makoto's teeth on edge.

The dead, they were the dead. This place was unnatural.

"Is she here?" she wondered aloud.

"Inside," came the answer, a child's whisper again. Makoto's tail fluffed out in a brief spasm of fear, but she only nodded.

"Come with me," she said to the children, tweaking her fingers to draw them along with her like puppets. The main door off the courtyard was painted bright red. Makoto headed for it.

A snatch of conversation from within caught her attention, and she went still. It was the medicine seller's voice.

* * *

"Why am I here?" he asked. "Why… did you bring me here."

"You're my child, now," she said, smiling quite sweetly. "I only ever wanted one thing."

She would have raised a child with a bird beak and hollow bones. She would have.

"You cannot have children when you are dead," said the medicine seller evenly.

"I could not have children when I was alive!" she replied, fury twisting her pristine face for but a moment. "And I am not dead! Could a dead woman have created all this?" she spread her arms wide, indicating the lavishness of the house around her.

"A Mononoke could," was his reply. "One who need not be alive. Now… tell me. Why."

"There is nothing more to say," she said softly.

Behind the door, Makoto's eyes went wide. She could taste it, like a scent on the air, the woman's Regret as thick as smoke. She could see it, she could only hope the medicine seller could in time. They were both drowning, after all.

"You are not drowning," whispered the nearest child. "You're—"

"Shh," she hissed.

"I only ever wanted one thing," said the river witch, shaking her head.

"Ah," said the medicine seller. The teeth on the sword clicked. The woman's head jerked up.

"What was that?" she asked. He did not answer.

"Now. I only need your Truth."

* * *

"You can't drown," the child repeated. "You're the mountain god. The river's on the mountain."

Makoto blinked, registering. She drew away from the wall, and looked down at him.

"What?" she breathed.

* * *

When the mountain god died, there was an exchange.

The cumulative natural energy, the power, of an entire mountain, could not simply disperse. It must be housed, the essence balanced, or else, chaos.

When the mountain god died, a kitten latched on to his love, his spirit, his gentleness. She did not want him to die, so, because of her nature, she made it so. In a way.

The loose power, the remainder, attached to the very last victim. The woman, the mother of a tengu-child. The river that had consumed the son of the mountain god. The only one left alive, at the end of the day.

They were the mountain god.

* * *

Makoto opened her eyes. They were lit from behind by a golden glow. With self-awareness came power.

This was the truth.

* * *

_Disclaimer: don't own it. I do however cosplay Kusuriuri-san, so if you're at Fanime this year, I'll be the one with Apples to Apples in my medicine cabinet… and I'll probably be hanging out with a Vegeta and a giraffe._

_IF THIS CHAPTER MADE NO SENSE WHATSOEVER I'M SORRY._

_I think this is going to finish in another chapter or so. After that I've got ideas for a couple other Mononoke fanfic, though. _

_I'm trying, I honestly am, and I'm not certain at all about this whole thing now that I'm starting to wrap it up. I'm going to take questions in reviews very seriously and try to address everything that's unclear either in the next couple chapters or in a revision of this one. Suggestions are welcome, critiques, etc. _


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